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Human Evolution Has Stopped

Scazon said:
It's a Fukuyama moment.
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I really like that. Is it yours, or is the term already in circulation?

(As soon as I saw the title of Fukuyama's book I just knew that posterity would not be kind to him (fairly or not). "Move over, Canute," I thought, "A new star has been born".)

You're quite right; this an example of the Culmination Fallacy.
 
Cainkane1 said:
Its been slowed down but it hasn't stopped. I've know married couples with inherited genetic problems that have volutarily not had children because of the possibility that their children would have the same problem.
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A new option, in some cases, is in vitro fertilisation and embryo selection.

The long-term impact of such technology (which is developing rapidly) is likely to be signficant, genetically and socially.
 
Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but natural selection isn't the only player when it comes to evolution. The way I learned evolution, sexual selection was considered to be something different from natural selection, and it adds quite a bit of pressure when it comes to dictating reproductive success in the human species.
 
rhtufts said:
Here is a great video talking about ongoing beneficial human mutations and evolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU-7d06HJSs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Yiiphkrqw


.02
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Hokulele said:
Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but natural selection isn't the only player when it comes to evolution. The way I learned evolution, sexual selection was considered to be something different from natural selection, and it adds quite a bit of pressure when it comes to dictating reproductive success in the human species.
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women prefer carpentry skills.
 
sexual selection was considered to be something different from natural selection
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As I understand it, sexual selection is an alternative to functional adaptation. Natural selection- the modify/ test/ eliminate algorithm- is the mechanism whereby in nature traits are propagated or eliminated. The alternative to natural selection is artificial selection (which from the replicators' point of view just makes the selector another environmental factor).
 
If you google "best of today steve jones", about the second link down you can access a podcast of the radio interview with Steve Jones. Gives a better idea of what he's trying to say than some of the reports in the press.

Sorry I can't post a direct link as I haven't reached a sufficient post count yet. Maybe someone else can?
 
Nomada said:
Sorry I can't post a direct link as I haven't reached a sufficient post count yet. Maybe someone else can?
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Just post the link without "http://" and perhaps spaces around the slashes and someone will linkify it for you.
 
OK, erlando.

downloads dot bbc dot co dot uk / podcasts / radio4 / today / today_20081007-1000b.mp3

Please remove 'dots' and spaces, but don't add 'www' on the front, just use the 'htt...'

Hope that makes sense.
 
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Thanks, erlando.

I think there's a slightly mixed message in the interview, but I quote the following analogy in it by Jones: "Evolution is a bit like a bicycle: but if you stop, you fall off. So I don't think it will stop altogether".
 
Nomada said:
If you google "best of today steve jones", about the second link down you can access a podcast of the radio interview with Steve Jones. Gives a better idea of what he's trying to say than some of the reports in the press.

Sorry I can't post a direct link as I haven't reached a sufficient post count yet. Maybe someone else can?
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Hit the threads in Community and Humor, and you'll get your post count up right quick. :D
 
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